


For The Weight of Our Sin

by ruanyu



Series: All Things Counter [4]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Bruce Banner Drinks Tea, Bruce Is a Good Bro, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes Returns, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Guilt, Healing, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Philosophy, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Talking, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-08 15:50:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6861595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruanyu/pseuds/ruanyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce took them up to the building’s rooftop, led him to standing at the edge, where the city spread out beneath them in all directions, where people were specks moving across the grid of grey, and cars were child’s toys. Bucky looked down from on high on these small, busy people with their small, busy affairs, that seemed so all consuming for each individual, so inconsequential from up here. He filled his lungs with the cold air of being outside for the first time in many days and thought of falling. Lobo prowled along the edge, his fur ruffled by the wind, dark rounded ears flickering. <em>Don’t fall,</em> he warned Bucky, with dark humor. <em>Not again</em>. </p><p>“Did you bring me here to tempt me?” Bucky asked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For The Weight of Our Sin

**Author's Note:**

> Fourth part of All Things Counter. Really won't make sense if you haven't read the previous stories. These should probably have been chapters not parts of a series, but hey, I'm still new to this. If you'd prefer I turn the series into a multi chapter work, let me know.

_So what’s left is absolution_  
_for the weight of our sin_

This Town Needs Guns – Badger

Bucky could not meet the psychiatrist’s too perceptive eyes.

The woman, who had introduced herself as Thea, had shaken his hand firmly, then sat down with purpose, prepared to listen, and Bucky could not meet her eyes. He could only stare at the floor and answer her gentle questions in stops and starts and embarrassing stutters.

There were guards bristling with weapons just outside the door, sent by SHIELD to protect their psychiatrist. They had been inside, officious and wary of him, but she had sent them out with firm resolve, and waved away his surprise. “We’ll be fine,” she said, as though she was the one who should reassure him.

He’d wanted to ask why she wasn’t afraid of him but her easy smile made him bite his tongue. He’d wanted to call her doctor, because that gave all this some element of necessity, but she had waved that away, said she could not stand formalities. With her ruddy apple-cheeks and curling flyaway greying hair and the calluses on her hands she seemed more like a farmer than a doctor, but she was listening attentively, with a kind of attentive-quiet-but-not-silence that was its own magic, that kept him filling the soft pauses with his fumbling words.

Bucky thought he could tell her that the worst fragments of his shredded memories, the ones that made him taste bile, and she would not blink, only touch her border collie daemon in that gentle way she had, petting, scratching behind the soft ears as she was doing now.

The hyena was almost shaking with jealousy over this easy affection. _I don’t like her daemon,_ Lobo said. _I don’t like him at all._

That made sense. Hyenas were predators, lived in packs, and didn’t do well without hierarchy. Border collies were protectors, belonged to shepherds, to people who knew how to wander and find their way home. Bucky could imagine this woman on green hills, strong wind lifting her greying hair, needing no guide but herself, easy with the elements.

Thea wanted to know about the nightmares that still made him wake up screaming. Bucky told her that he couldn’t remember them. That was true, in some twisted way. The dreams were all about forgetting. Waking from cold nothingness into confusion before the clarity of commands and targets.

She would have been a good rapport-building interrogator. She pursued each line of questioning until just when he began to feel uneasy, and then she stepped back, leaned back in her chair, contemplated him with those perceptive eyes and switched tacks. “What do you want most? At this moment?”

Once the soldier would have answered, weapons don’t want. Now Bucky looked at her comfortable face and her easy affectionate nature and the bright-eyed border collie with his tongue- lolling happiness and said: “I want to rest.”

The words, or his voice, were too revealing. He saw that in the disquiet she tried to hide.  
“What kind of rest?” she asked, even though he knew that she knew what he meant. She would not change her approach, her gentle, guiding questions.

“If they had a cryo-chamber I would ask them to let me sleep,” Bucky said, weary of the pretense. Once the words were out, of course, he wished them unsaid, because they invited the kind of saccharine pity that only made him feel more helpless.

Thea met this statement with contemplative silence, not with that melting tenderness he’d feared, not even with brusque reassurances that she knew he did not really want to sleep forever (he would have found a way by now if it was true). She stroked the collie gently, and her daemon, knowing what was wrong, rose up and distracted her with bright eyes and nuzzling affection. She smiled, the way she might have smiled at a beloved if mischievous child, and stroked the silky ears.

“It’s understandable that you want to…rest, after what you have been through,” she said. He thought she was the kind of woman who exuded motherly protectiveness. A woman who would gather a worried child against her and solve the world’s problems for that child for a few precious minutes.

“Do you have children?” Bucky asked out of nowhere, because why should she get all the questions, and because he did not think he could stand to be around the quiet contentedness she exuded for much longer. This was one way to preempt the inevitable, make her realize she could not help him. “Grandchildren?”

She glanced at him, not surprised, not entirely, but displeased, her smile-line wreathed face still. “Why would you ask me that? Would you have asked if I were an old man instead of a withered old woman?”

Bucky paused, first because there was nothing withered about her, and second because he could hardly tell her that he envied her the hypothetical children for the hugs she’d given them when they were little. “Probably not,” he acknowledged.

She leaned back in her chair, satisfied that he at least recognized his chauvinism. For a tense moment, she said nothing, then she shook her head. “No biological children,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

He shrugged. He wouldn’t blame his chauvinism on being born too early; he wouldn’t explain to her that he had an image of her hugging her non-existent little ones. 

“Would you like to have children, sometime?” she asked. He’d managed to goad her that far, that she would ask him to think of his painfully unclear future. He couldn’t answer of course, and when he had no words he retreated behind the blank-eyed soldier, except the soldier knew someone in authority had asked him a question and he had to answer. He shifted, uneasily.

Thea was a soft touch. Her newfound sharpness was utterly undone simply by the nervous twitch of his bionic fingers. “I’m sorry, that was unforgivable. You don’t have to answer,” she said, kindness threatening what composure he had left.

Bucky swallowed, the sound audible in the tense silence.

“Your mother…” Thea began, softly.

“No,” Bucky said harshly. “We’re not talking about mothers.”

Thea raised her brows. “I wasn’t going to start discussing Oedipal complexes.”

He apologised. She said it was unnecessary. He tried again. “I don’t remember my mother,” he said, reluctantly, a small confession. “I only remember Steve’s mother.”

“Ah,” Thea said, after a moment. “Could you tell me a little of what you remember about her?”

Bucky took a slow breath. He remembered her long illness. Steve’s wan weary face when she died. Wanting to hold him close, having to make do with an arm slung around his bony shoulders.

At the end of their hour, Thea told him she would see him again soon and shook his hand again, with that firm callused grip, silently asking him to meet her eyes. He tried to do her that courtesy, to thank her for her time, but the words wouldn’t come. He jerked his hand back too roughly, and cursed himself when he was safely outside the door.

 

 

Bruce appeared at the door some time before sunset, when Steve wasn’t around to be protective. He asked: “Walk with me?” His badger daemon, Ella, blinked somnolently, coming up to them at a sedate pace, and Bucky guessed that there was a mission behind the request.

Bucky did know how to say no yet - Thea had said they would work on that. He suspected Bruce knew this and had found the balance with his suggestion-questions. It was comforting, knowing all he had to do was follow Bruce, especially because Bruce did not talk to him as they walked. Bucky had had enough of talking for a while after his two hours with Thea.

Lobo trotted after them, bringing up the rear. The hyena was still slightly nervous around the badger, recalling his unprovoked attack that first day, but she ambled amiably onwards, seeming not to mind him at all.

  
Bruce took them up to the building’s rooftop, led him to standing at the edge, where the city spread out beneath them in all directions, where people were specks moving across the grid of grey, and cars were child’s toys. Bucky looked down from on high on these small, busy people with their small, busy affairs, that seemed so all consuming for each individual, so inconsequential from up here. He filled his lungs with the cold air of being outside for the first time in many days and thought of falling. Lobo prowled along the edge, his fur ruffled by the wind, dark rounded ears flickering. _Don’t fall,_ he warned Bucky, with dark humor. _Not again._

“Did you bring me here to tempt me?” Bucky asked. He knew better than to assume his talks with the shrink would be confidential. But Bruce looked stricken at his question. So, it seemed he did not know about all the self-pitying talk of resting, but now he couldn’t exactly drag Bucky back down into the safety of the building, where there were four walls and nowhere to fall.

It would be right, Bucky mused, to die by falling from a great height, as he should have.

“Tempt you?” Bruce asked, cautiously. “Clint comes up here all the time. Puts things in perspective, he says.”

“I need things put in perspective for me?” Bucky said, antagonistically.

Bruce wasn’t taking the bait. His voice gentled. “I just thought you might want some fresh air, Bucky. You haven’t been outside for some time.”

It made sense for someone dangerous in anger to teach himself to be slow to get there, but all Bucky had to do was look at Ella’s pacing to know that Bruce was not calm, and when he was wound up enough, he’d lay waste to everything in his sight. Bucky was standing on the edge, looking for someone to push him.

“I haven’t been outside because you have me locked up here,” Bucky said, playing the prisoner, though he knew he was not ready to be human-not-weapon on the streets among the specks of people down below. Not now, maybe never.

“I know what you’re trying to do Bucky, and it’s not fair to me, or to you,” Bruce said. “Don’t goad me into anger. It won’t be pretty.”

Bucky blinked. Bruce’s decency shamed him. “I’m sorry.”

Bruce gave one of his distracted genial smiles. They were good, those smiles, made you feel that you had received your reply without inconveniencing anyone into statements. Bruce didn’t seem to be the kind of man who liked to make statements.

Just as Bucky was pondering this, Bruce squared his shoulders, took up the stance of someone with an important message to deliver. “Tony told me,” he stated. “What happened. What he did to you.”

Bucky felt tension thrum through him waiting for more, but Bruce had the patience of Thea. He waited for the silence to nudge Bucky into faltering speech, and though Bucky did not want to play that game, when nothing more was forthcoming, he opened his mouth. “What…what did Stark tell you?”

“That he heard some rumours that The Winter Soldier killed his parents. That he tried to get you to confess to it,” Bruce said, readily. “That if Pepper hadn’t stopped him, he might have done much worse than what he did.” He looked at Bucky. “Pepper wouldn’t say anything except ask me to talk to him. I had to get him very, very drunk to get him to tell me that much.”

“I don’t remember what happened,” Bucky said, distantly.

Bruce gave him a steady look. “You don’t have to pretend, Bucky. Not for me. If you want me to tell Tony that you don’t remember, that’s something else. But you don’t owe me, or him, and I doubt he’d believe you.” His mouth twisted. “Tony wouldn’t allow himself to let himself off the hook that easily anyway.”

Stark must have been twisting himself into knots, for Bruce to be so adamant. Bucky thought about it for a while, and Bruce waited for him. "You haven't told Steve?"

"No," Bruce confirmed. 

"Don't," Bucky said, immediately. That was something he knew he did not want. 

Bruce dipped his chin in acquiescence. "Not if you don't want me to. Are you telling me that you do remember?"

“Stark made me safe,” Bucky said, giving a one-shouldered shrug. “I asked him to do that. It was for me.”

Bruce shook his head. “No, Bucky. He hurt you, to make you say what he needed to hear, and it was for himself.”

“He wouldn’t have pushed if I had been able to tell him I didn’t remember. But I couldn’t tell him,” Bucky said, slowly. “And maybe if he had kept at it a while longer…maybe I would have remembered. The soldier might have remembered.”

The expression on Bruce’s face warned him to stop talking. The badger had stopped pacing, was glaring fixedly, giving a rumbly growl. Bucky looked at them warily, drawing the hyena behind him.

After a few minutes, Bruce took a deep breath, released it slowly. “You’re saying he should have tortured you. Is that it?”

“He deserves an answer,” Bucky said. “If I killed them, he should know.”

“Yes, he deserves to know. But even if you killed them, they made you do it.”

Bucky shook his head. “When you’re…angry, and you turn and you kill someone, would you feel it was your fault?”

Bruce regarded him for a moment. “I probably would. But it wouldn’t make it true.”

Bucky smiled bitterly. “True. What does that mean? What does it matter if it’s true or not? What matters is what happened.”

“I told him he should talk to you,” Bruce said. “It will take him a while to work up to that. When he does decide he has something to say to you, don’t excuse what he did. Understood?”

Bruce did not seem like the kind of man who enjoyed wielding imperatives, but he’d made himself be that man for this, delivering statements and commands within minutes of each other, for Stark’s wellbeing, for his sanity.

Bucky understood. He nodded. He’d do his best. “I’ll try.”

Bruce frowned. “You did not deserve what Tony did to you, Bucky. Just as you did not deserve what Hydra did to you.”

“What do I deserve?” Bucky asked, and it was not thought out enough to disguise the despair. “What absolution is there for someone who can’t count the lives he’s destroyed?”

Bruce’s eyes were flat and dark. “Every time the Other Guy returns, I kill and destroy, and it is more indiscriminate than not. Tony said you asked him if you were human. Am I? What I become when I change is more non-human than you ever were as the Winter Soldier.”

“There’s a difference between non-human and inhuman,” Bucky said, because he had done some reading, and because that was what Thea would say, he was sure of it. “And that’s what I am. Was. Inhuman. I never felt anger when I was killing, not like you. I felt…nothing. If I killed Tony’s parents, I wouldn’t have spared a thought for the fact that I had known Howard once, that he was a friend. I was a thing, a machine, a weapon. Inhuman.”

There was a pause that went on too long, as though Bruce was recognizing that he would not be able to change Bucky's mind, as though he understood that Bucky needed to make this confession to someone, that he could not say these words to Steve because Steve would not accept the reality of them. “You know Tony used to make weapons?” Bruce asked, after a too long pause.

Bucky nodded, warily.

Bruce signaled the movement, moving slow and careful to place a hand on his arm. Bucky carefully did not react, allowed Bruce to steer him away from the edge, because it was easier that way.

“He was wounded by one of his own missiles,” Bruce said, conversationally, beginning to tell him the story as they walked, so that Bucky would know about Tony Stark’s darkness, the inhuman part of him, as he knew of his own and Bruce’s.

  
When they descended from the roof, Bruce hesitated before extending an invitation. “Would you like some tea?”

“Nothing else planned,” Bucky said, after a moment of thinking about what people said in this circumstance, attempting appropriate lightheartedness.

Bruce smiled, another of those genial distracted smiles, and they walked down to his apartment, all muted colors, calming greens and blues, the sound of water burbling from some unknown source. Ella relaxed immediately, alerting Bucky to the fact that she had only been pretending to be calm all that time she had been ambling by his side. Lobo knew what that was like. He snuffled at her, she magnanimously accepted the peace gesture, and Bucky felt the tightness in his chest ease. The hyena was learning to make friends.

Bruce turned on the kettle and showed Bucky the loose tea he kept in the glass jars that filled the kitchen. “Choose.”

Bucky chose one of the teas at random, and Bruce smiled. “Tie Guan Yin. The procrastinator’s tea.”

Bucky raised a questioning brow. Bruce obliged this silent request for more information as he poured hot water into the teapot. “One legend goes that a tea farmer was picking his tea one day when he saw a deer and decided to go off on a hunt.” The tea leaves danced in the teapot, swirling, turning the water amber. “When he returned to the field the next day, he saw that the tea had should have been processed was beginning to oxidise.” Bruce paused. “And it tasted sweeter to him than it would have if it hadn’t been left in the sun that day.”

“Are we talking procrastination, or patience?” Bucky asked.

“Sometimes, it’s the same thing,” Bruce said, philosophically, handing him his tea.


End file.
